Landeigner,PLA,ABG,BRF,BRA,Meekamuis sind nicht jeweils homogene Gruppen,da vermischt sich vieles.
Was jedoch immer gilt ist das Wort der Chiefs oder Elders.
Hier ein Artikel der das teilweise verdeutlicht
(SOURCE: Studies in the Anthropology of Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Douglas L. Oliver. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University vol. XXIX. 1949.)
A Look at A Bigman: Bougainville
BACKGROUND
This is a journey into northwest Melanesia - New Guinea and the surrounding islands. Just south of the equator lies the island of Bougainville. Bougainville is about 130 miles long and averages 30 miles wide with an area of about 3500 square miles.
Bougainville Island, like most other islands in the southwestern Pacific, is probably a remnant of a Melanesian continent which once included New guinea and Australia. Two mountain ranges dominate the landscape. In the northern Emperor Range the active volcano Balbi rises to 10,171 feet; while the southern Crown Prince Range rises 9850 feet and contains Mount Bangana which is continually emitting clouds of steam and volcanic ash. These mountains fall away steeply on the eastern and northern coasts of Bougainville. Southwest along the Crown Prince Range lies an extensive alluvial plain. Along the coastal border of this plain there is a continuous strip of black sand beach and immediately behind it a belt of swamp 2 to 4 miles wide. A moat of swamps encircles the lower slopes and isolates beaches from habitable inland areas.
Bougainville is well within the equatorial climate zone but the heat is rarely oppressive. In most coastal areas there is generally cooled by southeasterly winds. Even if the day has been humid and cloudy and without showers, there is always a cool or even cold night created by cold mists that roll off the mountains. There is no marked variation in seasons. Occasionally there are fierce cloud-bursts preceded by violent electric storms. Rain collects in the higher elevations and enormous quantities of water then rush down the streams with a roar.
There is abundant water on Bougainville. Springs and streams abound. None of the rivers, except when they may briefly flood, is more than about 200 yards wide and several feet deep. A few of the streams flow swiftly into the sea; others empty gradually into swamps immediately behind the narrow beaches along the coast. Stream flows can be abruptly changed as a result of frequent earthquakes - some of them violent enough to topple houses and cause dangerous landslides.
The island is covered with luxurious tropical rain forest. Large areas have been cleared for settlements and gardens but it does not take long for the forest to reclaim a deserted village or garden area. So thick is the cover provided by impressively giant trees that few shafts of sunlight penetrate. Sago palms grow in swamps and in marshy patches along the lower slopes. Coconut palms are rare.
Wild pigs, opossums, tree rates and many varieties of flying foxes constitute the largest mammals. Birds in many varieties occur in great profusion. Most of these are significant in native religions.
Villages consist of a series of rectangular houses. The locations of these depends upon a number of factors: defense, proximity to water, available garden areas. It is typical that they will be found on the top of long ridges between streams. There is generally some kind of club-house or meeting house in every settlement. These are usually large, shed-like structures and sometimes contain wooden slit gongs. Other structures into pottery-making sheds, canoe-sheds, and garden lean-to's.
Bougainville natives supply their food needs chiefly through farming and secondarily through fishing, hunting, wild plant collecting, pig raising and fowl raising. Taro is the stable crop grown in fertile alluvian areas. A minimum of 100 different varieties of taro have been noted. In addition to taro, yams, sweet potatoes, bananas, coconuts, almonds, breadfruit are added. Planting of fields in continuous since there are not seasonal changes. The only annuals are the almonds and breadfruit.
Fishing is an important source of food for people living along the coasts, but fishing is hazardous and not very productive. Wild pigs are hunted with spears and assisted by dogs. There are few natives, however, who are skilled enough to provide wild pork on a regular basis. Throughout the entire island, natives hunt opossums by capture and trapping and shoot birds with different types of arrows. The natives utilize a large assortment of green leaves, extract sago, and collect numerous varieties of insects.
Two types of language are spoken on Bougainville Island. These are Melanesian and Papuan. This reflects the position of Bougainville west of the Solomon Islands and east of New Guinea where Melanesian and Papuan languages respectively are found. Seventeen distinct dialects have been discovered on the island.
Bougainville culture is remarkably uniform in comparison to New Guinea for example. Uniformities exist on the material culture, economic and sociological levels. Over all the island descent is reckoned matrilineally. There are totemic clans that possibly derive from a dual (moiety) clan system. The Eagle represents one moiety which the Hornbill or Fish Hawk the other. Natives differentiate between "salt water" and "bush" people. This reflects the division of people living along the coast and those living inland. Relations between these groups can be hostile or friendly depending on different histories. Natives living on the north end of the island practiced cannibalism while those on the south end abhorred the practice. There is also a strenuous initiation cult in the north that does not appear in the south. Both the cannibalism and cult are reflective of New Guinea contacts.
People have a dark pigmentation. Features of both New Guinea and Melanesia can be found in individuals throughout the island.
A MUMI
Imagine a society where you end up in hell if you are miserly and greedy. This is an adventure into such a society. Your goal is to become a renown mumi. The mumi with the widest reputation will be the point of reference when outsiders speak of the people of an area. You are to build followers who will assist you in your endeavor. It is said that a mumi owns a lot of land and crops, possesses a plentiful supply of wealth (shell money and pigs), and maintains a club-house filled with wooden gongs. This is the ideal picture of someone who owns things. However, a mumi is not the riches person in terms of things. For example, anyone can own a wooden gong, but only the man whose prestige is enhanced by ownership is the one who has employed the rewarded large numbers of relations and friends is viewed as a mumi. A mumi is a leader who exhibits unique abilities to lead through his reputation to assemble other people to share in his undertaking to possess things like land, crops, and wealth. This is the world of the Bigman.
FOOD and FEASTS
The word for "food" is pao; it is also the word for feast. Eating is considered first and foremost a social event and only secondarily a means to satisfying hunger and restoring energy. To eat with a stranger is to show confidence in him, to demonstrate that one does not fear his sorcery.
A feast is held when a child eats its first taro or port or red bananas. Food is exchanged when a young couple is betrothed. it is shared by the bride and groom as a sign of marriage. The critical aspect of mother-in-law avoidance is the taboo against exchanging food. Relationship with the clan totem is stressed by one's refusal to eat it; and clan solidarity is symbolized by participation in a sacred communal meal. Sorrow is most poignantly demonstrated by voluntary food restrictions.
The cultural heroes - Paopiahe, Tantanu, and Panana are endeared because they created good food. In one myth Paopiahe allowed himself to be boiled in a pot and turned into taro and yams.
Honored men are those who organize feasts and provide food delicacies. The feast-giver need not use his own wealth to provide a banquet; he will encourage relatives and friends (supporters) aid him in his endeavors. The significant factor is that the host and not his financial backers receives acclaim even though guests are fully aware of the arrangements that made the feast possible.
AMBITIOUS MEN
A man who is ambitious for social renown generally begins by inducing his village mates to build a club-house for him. This labor is repaid by a feast. Then he commissions the cutting and installation of a wood-gong in the club-house. This gong is used to count his "wealth" at a feast. His renown in the village is not complete until these steps are completed.
A man who is ambitious embarks on a competition. He begins modestly feting a petty chief in a neighboring village. He invites that individual to a feast and showers him with pigs and vegetable pudding. And if the guest cannot repay within a season or two he loses prestige and his "benefactors" look around for another sponsor to aid. An ambitious man can become a mumi who is shrewd in estimating his "victims" ability to repay. He will go just beyond that limit for the repayment must be equivalent to or more bountiful than the original gift. Sometimes two closely matched rivals will compete for years, back and forth until one of them bankrupts himself and all his relatives. After that the victor takes the measure of a more worthy rival and competes once again. There would appear to be no limit to this expansion until one reaches the boundaries of tribal territories.
If you receive a gift, you are expected to redistribute it among your followers and they will promptly dispose of them. Consequently, the recipient cannot simply hoard any gift intact and give it back to the donor. He must repay an equivalent amount with new wealth.
WEALTH (Economics of a Bigman)
Wealth is measured in terms of pigs and shell money. Pigs are valued highly. They are not scavengers, in fact they have their food cooked and fed to them in baskets. Not infrequently one sees women premasticating taro and feeding it to feeble young pigs. The girth of a pig is measured in fractions of an adult man's arm span and the value of the pig is reckoned according in terms of shell money. Pigs of more than average value (worth 50 to 100 spans of shell money) are exchanged and eaten only at feasts. There is always a market for pigs and they can readily be converted into shell money.
Shell money varies in kind and in value. There are crudely pierced and unpolished mussel shells called mauai. These are strung into strings to make a long strand. A span of mauai is assigned an exchange value that is common to all. A second type of shell money is a better made and finely polished mollusc, spondylous or mussel shell strand. A particularly well made span of spondylous is worth fifty to one hundred times as much as the cruder mauai. This type is inherited.
All shell money was made elsewhere and traded to Bougainville in return for pigs, weapons and almonds. Therefore there is a set supply of shell money available on the island.
Shell money can be accumulated through inheritance, by the sale of pigs or pottery, and by interest on loans. Money figures in every kind of ritual and ceremonial. Magical rites are carried out for the purpose of increasing and protecting it. Inhereted money called Tomui must never be used for currency. It is a form of clan heirloom passed down through generation after generation and is protected by ancestral spirits.
Wealth is ultimately measured in having a feast and sharing through ceremony rather than in being "wealthy" by possessing large hoards of shell money and/or herds of the largest pigs.
HIERARCHIES
Men in villages are viewed in different terms. If a man is a mumi, he is really on top; if he is a mouhe, he is not quite so high; if he is a turarurana, he is at the bottom; if he is a mumi's pokonopo, he is in the middle. The word pokonopo is actually translated into a possessive "his" along with "friend". In every village there are a few men who used their own wealth to assist their mumi to prepare feasts and distribute property. They are, literally, supporters. They were either mouhe or pokonopo or more usually both. Turarurana were considered a "thigh" of the mumi in some cases. They would till his soil and would be provided with food and perhaps a wife in return.
RULES FOR A BIGMAN
(SOURCE: Studies in the Anthropology of Bougainville, Solomon Islands, Douglas L. Oliver. Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University vol. XXIX. 1949.) |
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